money tree

So, Thursday night I get a call from an old friend – a friend I'll refer to as RT. I was surprised to find his missed phone call on my cell. Wow, I thought, I haven't heard from RT in a year, maybe two. I call him, and the first 15 minutes of our phone conversation is basically catching up with each other, filling in the missing spaces since we last spoke. Things were good – hearing from an old friend is always good – which is why I had no reason to suspect an ulterior motive to his convo – until he said, "The real reason I called, well, besides to catch up and whatnot, is I wondered if you'd be interested in a business proposition." One thing I need to state: RT is literally the last person I would expect to offer a business proposal; I don't know, I can't really outline the reasons why that's the case… I suppose, up until that point, I'd never considered RT to be business savvy. It simply isn't his style. This point, along with the fact that his unexpected phone call was not without motive, shocked me. He then begins to feed me vague details about the proposition, which, apparently, is some kind of network-marketing scheme. Or something. See, I had difficulty digesting what he was telling me because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was, in one word, bizarre. Wait, I recall thinking, this is RT, and he's proposing some sketchy marketing thing? He then invites me to a seminar at his place, which is a considerable distance from me, in which a DVD will be screened along with a PowerPoint presentation. He continues to tell me vague details about the scheme, his spiel peppered with what are clearly the talking points of the operation. And I'm like, What the fuck? Never mind the fact that my broke ass is struggling to go to school and work part time – I certainly don't have anything that resembles "disposable income." Strange, the whole phone call was strange.

As I was typing this post, I recalled RT recommending that I read a book titled Rich Dad, Poor Dad. So, I just Googled the title, and the second most popular search, besides the title itself, is "rich dad poor dad scam." The Web site, richdad.com, an obvious and official extension of the Robert Kiyosaki book, is operated by CASHFlow Technologies, Inc., for Christ's sake. Now I'm just sad; sad because my initial skepticism was probably correct: RT's network-marketing scheme is a scam, which means a good friend is being conned. I know what you might be thinking: RT is an uneducated, gullible sap whose broke ass is looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. Not the case. Dude graduated from a respectable university and recently purchased a house.

I could be wrong, of course. Perhaps his network marketing proposition isn't a scam, but I like to think my street smarts are pretty sharp, especially when it comes to money-making proposals. I'm going to stay away from this "opportunity."

xx